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 KATIE NOONAN talks to ROXY BURT about future projects, working with a Grammy Award-winning producer and the realities for women in the music biz.
Not only has Katie Noonan recorded and released three solo albums, but she has also released albums with george, her mother Maggie Noonan and jazz trio Elixir. Shortly Noonan will be embarking on her last solo tour with The Captains, which follows on from their debut Emperor’s Box in April 2010. It won’t be stopping there for Noonan however, who will continue working on other projects including Elixir. The trio released their first album in 2003 and not until 2010 did her creative muses lead her to Elixir again.
“The Captains guitarist Cameron is moving to India so the band will take a slightly different shape, we’ll be sending ideas via email, but he’ll be back to tour,” Noonan explains of her current projects. “Elixir are scheming up something exciting for the Brisbane Festival in September; it will be a world premiere.”
When asked whether alternative pop band george will ever record again, Noonan is hesitant but optimistic. “I’ll never say never, but I doubt it. We haven’t played in over six years… Some things come to their natural end and I would much prefer to go out on a high. I was always worried I wouldn’t find that deep, band musical connection again; I had it so good in george basically.”
Emperor’s Box was co-produced by the legendary Nick DiDia who boasts the likes of Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen and Stone Temple Pilots on his resume “He obviously has a great history of making beautiful albums, including Powderfinger, and the first Powderfinger record that I really loved was Internationalist, which was recorded by Nick … In my opinion that album took the band to a different place and I guess I was hoping me working with him would do a similar thing. We got on really well and he respected my opinion, and we never had any head-butting situations creatively. He’s great at capturing an organic band sound. I was also really excited to work with him because he hasn’t worked with many women. I was excited about him bringing more of a muscular energy.”
Noonan will be talking at Q Music’s first Women In Music conference in March and when asked whether women have to work harder than men in the industry, she speaks with sincerity. “I think women have to work harder at not being manipulated in terms of imagery, there’s much less emphasis on the physicality of boys. There’s much more (emphasis) on the physicality of girls and the sexualisation of females in film clips and photos. Half the film clips nowadays are essentially soft porn, so that’s an issue. I think all of the women who make great music don’t have to rely on what they look like to sell music. They might happen to be beautiful, but they don’t have to wear next to nothing to sell their music. That’s probably the main difference.”
KATIE NOONAN & THE CAPTAINS play the Judith Wright Centre on Friday Mar 4. Noonan also speaks at the Women In Music conference at the Judith Wright Centre on Tuesday Mar 8. For more info, check out www.katienoonan.com, www.judithwrightcentre.com and www.womeninmusic.com.au.
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